Riley v. City of Prescott, No. CV-11-08123-PCT-JAT, 2014 WL 641632 (D. Ariz. Feb. 19, 2014)

Key Insight: Court applied five-part test to deny plaintiff’s motion for claim-dispositive sanctions but would allow reasonable attorneys’ fees and adverse inference instruction where city failed to suspend its 45-day retention policy for city employee email and defendant mayor apparently destroyed or failed to preserve relevant email in his private Gmail account, as numerous emails on which the mayor or his assistant were senders or recipients were discovered from third party sources, e.g., Google, Inc., but none were included in defendants’ production

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Email